By Moonlight
by hiddenhibernian
Summary: Severus is waiting. Eagerly, at first; later on, impatience is replaced with horror as he watches Hermione fly straight into the trap set by the Muggle-Born Eradication Task Force. Powerless to do anything to save her, all he can do is to bear witness to her downfall.
1. Chapter 1

**This was originally written for Gelsey, for the SSHG giftfest on LiveJournal, with Alfred Noyes' poem The Highwayman as inspiration. I took some liberties with the source material (fortunately for me, Severus Snape is a fictional character and can't object to featuring as Bess, the landlord's black-eyed daughter). As always, I owe my wonderful beta Hìril a huge thank you – any remaining errors are my own.**

* * *

 **By Moonlight**

 **Chapter 1**

 **-oOo-**

The shutters shook with every new gust of wind, and on the floor below an unlatched door creaked and whined as it flapped shut and then open again, like it was complaining about the rough treatment meted out.

Severus approached the window again, but drew back, just like he had the other thirteen times.

It was not yet time; to open the window now would only attract unwanted attention. The Headmaster of Hogwarts descending upon the seediest inn in Hogsmeade invited the kind of comments he despised, but at least the gossips knew what brought him there every few weeks.

Careful to preserve the illusion, Severus had chosen a woman at random downstairs and instructed Rosmerta to leave them alone for the night. He hadn't bothered to ask the wench her name; as soon as the door had slammed shut behind them she had succumbed to a bout of drowsiness, and was now sleeping peacefully on the bed.

Severus glanced at her – a drop of saliva rolled down from the corner of her mouth to join its predecessors, forming a wet patch on the mattress. He resolved never to sit there again. The Three Broomsticks' decline had been rapid, and unobservant patrons could be fooled by the elegant furnishings.

Severus knew better; he recognised a dark stain on the pillowcase from a fortnight ago. Rosmerta's standards had crumbled along with her aspirations to respectability.

She wasn't the only witch whose present fell short of the promises of her past.

Downstairs, he refused to look closely at the whores because he was almost certain to recognise his old students; their demographic virtually guaranteed he had been teaching them Potions a decade or two ago. Young whores didn't end up at Rosmerta's; they made much more money at the Hag's Head, under Horace Slughorn's tutelage.

His old students were among them too, of course; there was nothing Severus could do to keep them safe once they had left Hogwarts. Even under Dumbledore, the balance between protecting the children and preparing them had been precarious; Severus had spent most of his tenure torn between the two by circumstances outside his control.

He frequently wondered when one ceased to keep one's cover and became part of the new regime: ten years later? Twenty? When all hope was gone (he'd never even made it, in that case)?

His presence here tonight could be construed as an attempt to continue the fight on behalf of Albus Dumbledore and The Order of The Phoenix, both sadly defunct. For all his faults, Severus was scrupulously honest with himself most of the time. The real reason was rather closer to his purported errand than he cared to admit.

For all of his convoluted reflections he was still waiting: where, in the name of Merlin's cragged carbuncles, was she?

Hermione Granger was late, and anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with her knew she was never late.

* * *

"You forgot the kettle?" Hermione thought she could be forgiven if she sounded a bit petulant. She had spent hours on a broom, never her favourite mode of transport in the first place, and she was chilled to the bone.

Ordinarily, Severus could be relied upon to produce a steaming cup of tea, a rare luxury to someone on the run. Today, he had apparently decided he had better things to do.

"Pardon me for according more importance to my tasks as Headmaster than planning your evening cuppa." He looked down at her, impeccably clad in the flowing black robes she remembered from her very first day at Hogwarts, back when every detail in the scene unfolding now would have been Hermione's idea of a poor joke rather than her future.

The bastard had probably had a bath in the last week as well, unlike Hermione.

"Unlike you, I don't have house-elves at my beck and call." She sidled over to the fireplace, almost blocking it in her attempt to defrost her numb fingers. About to continue grumbling, she bit her tongue – they weren't here to argue.

"Do go on – to what do I owe this unusual reticence?" Snape, of course, could never let sleeping dragons lie.

"I was about to point out that not all of us can sit out the war at Hogwarts, with a fire roaring next to your cosy bed. I did realise it was unfair." It felt good saying it, however, and thanks to Snape she didn't need to feel bad about it either.

"A mere four consecutive decades of spying have naturally left me unable to appreciate the exigencies of fieldwork." The sneer on his face was magnified by the flickering light of the fire.

"A simple 'Sorry, I'll bring it the next time' would do." Sometimes, Hermione wished things could just be nice and simple. Then she remembered she had more important things to worry about. "Any news?"

"About what?" Snape swivelled around on the spot, his robes still billowing half a second after he had come to rest again. In his cupped hands he was holding the cup of tea Hermione had imagined to keep her going for the last forty miles on the broom.

"Where did you get that?" She almost snatched the cup out of his hands, holding it up to her chin to feel the rising heat.

"I _am_ a wizard."

Hermione's instinctive response, involving the Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law, fluttered and died as she took in the forbidding expression on his face. She knew it well; it always seemed to make an appearance when he did something nice. If Severus Snape would rather have his hair shaved off than have it acknowledged that he occasionally behaved like a normal person, that was fine with her.

"Seeing as you are also an important public figure, I'll ask again: what news have you got?" She almost scalded herself on the first sip, and it burnt a hot path all the way down her throat. It was heaven.

"Yaxley's retirement from the Ministry is imminent. His successor is not yet announced, but the Crups on the street know it's going to be Weasley."

Hermione perked up. "Percy? That's great news!"

"Hardly. As Head of Magical Law Enforcement, he will be under increased scrutiny. He is of vastly more use to you as an anonymous Undersecretary, attracting little attention except from inside the Ministry." Merlin knew how Weasley had made it as far as he had; Severus didn't expect him to last a month in his new post.

"We'd better strike quickly, then." Hermione's optimism was mostly intended to annoy Snape; more than five years after Harry had been struck down by Nagini in the Battle of Hogwarts, they weren't any closer to bringing Voldemort down now than they had been then.

As far as they knew ('they' being the survivors of the Hogwarts defenders: a mix of DA members, Order fighters and others who had been left no choice other than keep on fighting), Voldemort had refrained from creating more Horcruxes, but he kept Nagini under constant watch, confining the snake to an underground palace built for the purpose.

Fleur and Neville had spent the last three years digging a non-magical tunnel to get in, but as their target wriggled and squirmed, presumably moving in concert with Nagini, progress was slow. They had other avenues of attack, but they all relied on Voldemort coming into the open. He hadn't shown his face in public in years.

The insurgents' biggest asset was five foot, eleven inches of eloquent but wordless disapproval next to Hermione.

No one knew how close Snape had been to dying when a victorious Voldemort had dispatched Lucius Malfoy to see if the Headmaster was still breathing. He had been, just about, and somehow he had survived by prescribing his own Potions, brewed by Narcissa Malfoy, who apparently had been one of Horace Slughorn's favourites.

Snape had returned to his post, neglecting to mention who he really had been fighting for all that time, getting the shock of his life when Hermione tumbled out up in his fireplace a month later. It was the only time she had ever seen him lost for words.

It didn't last long – in-between his diatribes on her stupidity appearing at Hogwarts and bitter complaints that not even his dying thoughts had been left private (Hermione refused to feel bad for that one; it had been Professor McGonagall who had found the Pensieve full of memories as she prepared to evacuate the castle), he also castigated Hermione for not realising that Dumbledore had intended to let Harry die all along.

That was too much, even for someone inclined to turn him into a surly hero. "And what do you expect I would have done, if I had known?" she snapped.

"To come up with a plan, Miss Granger – wasn't that why you came along, to provide the boy with some brains?" Snape looked like he wanted to bite his own tongue off when he realised what he had said – apparently even a backhanded compliment was too generous for him.

"Should I have told him to run, then? You mustn't have known Harry at all, if you think there was any way he wasn't going to confront Vol- that bastard once he knew he could put an end to it." She brushed a tear away – thinking about Harry going off alone always broke through her carefully constructed defences. "I would have gone with him, but I could as soon have made the sun rise in the west as I could have persuaded Harry not to go."

"Be that as it may –"

A rising tide of annoyance pushed Hermione's grief aside. "I believe this is where you apologise, rather than continue digging yourself deeper into the hole."

"Really, Miss Granger? If defeat has turned you delusional, I don't think there is any point to our little chat." Snape spat out the last word as if it had offended him personally.

"No point at all, if all you care about is the past."

"Everything I care about is in the past." The shadows in the corners of the room seem to draw closer around Snape, like a cloak of darkness embracing him.

"Why are you still here, then?"

That brought him up short. "What do you mean?"

Hermione took a small amount of vicious pleasure in spelling it out for him. "If you really didn't care about anything, Hogwarts is surely the last place you would be. Are you trying to tell me you wouldn't have been able to come up with a way of slipping away quietly, letting your Dark Lord believe you were dead?"

"The Dark Lord is not easily deceived."

"You managed to do it for almost as long as I've been alive – I'm pretty sure you would have found a way."

"While your faith in my abilities is touching, I fail to see how it is relevant."

"Do you? If you didn't want to be here, you would have slipped away and let everyone believe you were dead. Instead, you choose to remain – that's a declaration the war isn't over, if I ever saw one." Matching glare for glare, she tried to read the blackness in his eyes, but Snape gave nothing away.

"Bravo, Miss Granger," a familiar voice said, and Hermione turned around towards it so fast she almost lost her balance. She had to grab on to Snape's desk as she faced the portrait of Dumbledore, smiling down at her just like she remembered.

"Oh, shut up!" Snape told him at the same time as Hermione found her tongue again.

"I'm surprised you didn't foresee this, seeing as you seemed to have everything else planned out. Did it ever occur to you that sharing information rather than hiding it would have been a better idea?"

There was sadness in his painted blue eyes as he looked down at her. "Frequently, my dear. Alas, by then it was much too late."

"Don't waste your time arguing with a charmed canvas and some pigment," Snape cut in.

"Who should I be arguing with, then – you?"

"The current situation is beyond the stage where arguing would make any difference."

"Exactly," Hermione agreed. "That's why I've come here to establish a new line of communication between you and what remains of the Order of the Phoenix."

Snape cast a sideways glance at Dumbledore, as if he were challenging him to interrupt again, but the portrait remained silent. "While the invitation certainly is flattering, the fact that my self-appointed contact has not got as much as a N.E.W.T. to her name fails to inspire me with confidence."

Hermione wished she could arch one eyebrow like Snape; she had to settle for a less dignified eye roll. "Yeah, those N.E.W.T.s would have made all the difference: if only I'd passed Charms, I would have taken down Bellatrix before Mrs Weasley did."

"Run, Miss Granger. Run while you still can, and hide in the Muggle world. You have your whole life ahead of you – don't waste it on a war you've already lost." It was probably intended to be the kindest thing he had ever said to her.

"I'm not running, for the same reason you're still here." Hermione had committed herself years ago, perhaps even from the moment she had stepped onto the Hogwarts Express with her head crammed full of book-learning and an anxiously beating heart.

"As usual, your impertinence is only rivalled by your breathtaking presumption." His face was expressionless, unless you counted the sneer.

"If you didn't care what became of the students, you wouldn't be here. Save your put-downs for them instead, and listen to me." It had not escaped Hermione's notice that he hadn't ordered her to leave (yet). From Snape, it was as good as a gold-plated invitation. "I imagine you're aware the survivors have gathered together?"

"How accommodating – the inevitable attack will be much more efficient this way." He didn't ask who had survived, which told its own story. Hermione had been present when Professor McGonagall found out Snape had survived. She had been speechless for several minutes, her hands shaking violently as she clung to Fleur Weasley muttering something about 'the poor, poor boy'. Hermione would be very much surprised if Minerva McGonagall's regard was entirely one-sided.

"Don't worry – we're sufficiently protected to withstand even a giant attack. That's not what I need to talk to you about."

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your sustained intrusion, then?"

"We will keep on fighting." The decision had been made as soon as the wards had been set up and enough people could be spared from guard duty to talk strategy. It had been almost unanimous; anyone who didn't agree had left quickly afterwards, fleeing to France and further afield.

People still kept pouring into the camp, found by the Order's response to the Snatchers and advertisements in Muggle newspapers. After a year on the run, being surrounded by fellow fighters should have made Hermione happier than it did.

She kept seeing the missing faces, the empty places around the fire.

Ron wasn't much help – Hermione should have known better than hoping they could help each other holding it together. He escaped the roaring loneliness that came with being just two when there should have been three by pretending he was a Weasley first and foremost. Hermione barely got to talk to him without him being attached by one of his surviving siblings.

Hermione had never felt so alone before, despite being joined by others whose families either were dead, missing or safely in hiding.

She had volunteered to contact Snape so quickly Neville only had time to raise his hand to his ear, where it hovered uncertainly for a moment before he took it down again. Not everyone accepted her assignment so quickly, however.

"Why are you sending _her_?" Tracey Davis had ended up on the improvised leadership council by virtue of being the first Slytherin in the camp. Once she had pointed out that members of her house most likely had no means of contacting the opposition even if they were fighting against Voldemort, she had been joined by a trickle of others. "If there is anyone Headmaster Snape can't stand, it's Granger."

"He will speak to her, Miss Davis. Rest assured." Professor McGonagall was one of the select few who were privy to the details of the Horcrux hunt. Hermione had believed her at the time, but now she was uneasily aware that Snape had shared no useful information whatsoever so far.

"How will you keep on fighting, precisely?" He paced from one end of the room to another, robes swishing like they used to do in Potions when he got particularly agitated. "You have no supplies, a few hundred fighters at most and far too many dependents. The Dark Lord is searching the country to find you, and when he does –"

"He won't." Hermione looked him in the eyes, knowing he wouldn't believe her but making the attempt anyway. "We will continue to fight the only way that we can win: by destroying the last remaining Horcrux and then take him down."

Snape stopped dead in front of the window, his dark head contrasting against the soft sunlight seeping through the glass. "Horcruxes?" he whispered. "More than one?"

"Six have been destroyed. One," Hermione swallowed, staring intently at the fireplace where some pieces of coal had been dislodged by her arrival, "was Harry."

"The boy." He merely breathed the words, and Hermione kept her eyes away. "And the last one?" he asked eventually, in the voice she remembered from the Potions classroom.

"It's Nagini. Which is where you come in."

There was a long pause. "I would appreciate if you refrain from treading soot into the carpet in the future; the house-elves do have tasks other than cleaning up after careless visitors."

With Snape, all one needed to know lay in what he didn't say.

Hermione only visited his study twice after that; Snape came up with The Three Broomsticks scheme instead, to reduce the risks of relying on the heavily monitored Floo network, and house-elves cleaning up after her had become a distant memory.

It had seemed like a simple plan in the beginning: kill Nagini and then her master, followed by a general uprising. Unfortunately, they never got past the first part. Although Voldemort must have realised his Horcruxes were under attack, he didn't seem to have created more of them. Perhaps the unpredictability of splitting his soul in even more pieces frightened him.

Hermione didn't care; in retrospect, it might have been a more sensible plan to bring Voldemort down first and then track down the bloody Horcruxes at their leisure. Admittedly, Voldemort would have retreated to the shadows again, biding his time to return, but even the Ministry of Magic would surely have learnt the lesson the second time around. The Dark Lord skulking without a body was infinitely preferable to him actually running the country, mercilessly hunting down his enemies while they were trying to destroy him.

At the moment, however, their only chance to get to either Voldemort and Nagini was through Snape – but they could only use him once. Neither of the options were appealing: attack Voldemort, and Nagini would escape through his master's intricate web of detection spells – or bring Nagini down, and Voldemort would know Snape for a traitor.

Which was why they were still trudging along with option C, despite it taking Neville and Fleur years to advance even a few yards.

"Alas, there is only one likely outcome in a fight between Longbottom and Nagini – you could at least pretend to take the scheme seriously and assign an adult wizard to it." Snape looked like she had been caught passing notes in class.

Hermione didn't bother pointing out that Neville had been of age since he had escaped from Hogwarts; some subjects were best avoided with Snape. "Fleur Weasley used to be a Curse-Breaker in Gringotts. Or is a witch not enough for you?"

"Kindly refrain from endowing me with outdated Muggle prejudices. Mrs Weasley is... acceptable."

"Oh, for the love of Merlin," Hermione mumbled. Apparently, outdated Muggle stereotypes were partly accurate – she only wished it hadn't been true in the one area where Severus Snape's opinion was likely to overlap with Ronald Weasley's.

Predictably, Snape ignored her. "The Dark Lord is currently in Upper Flagley, visiting his faithful subjects. It is possible that Longbottom and Mrs Weasley may be marginally more successful in his absence."

"No doubt they will be fuelled by enthusiasm, should they hear of your ringing endorsement."

"One would think the opportunity to rid the world of a delusional tyrant who has long overstayed his welcome would be sufficient motivation."

Hermione was almost certain the glint in his dark eyes meant that he was joking. "It gets old, you know: save the world, bring freedom to the people, a new dawn, etc. etc. Maybe if you promised them you'd actually give them a compliment if they succeed, they might actually do it?"

His eyebrows went up and up, and Hermione was cringing in embarrassment of having misread him so. "Hardly. If I believe that would work, I would have praised Longbottom to the skies years ago. Cauldrons aren't cheap, you know."


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione's broom was slow at accelerating, and she thought she glimpsed a white face watching her from a window in the yard as she took flight. She knew Rosmerta's quarters were placed directly above the kitchens, and was easy – somewhat surprisingly, it had turned out Severus had a long history with the landlady of the Three Broomsticks and had vouched for her silence.

It made no sense, but Hermione was never happier than after an hour of bandying sarcasm and barbed comments with Snape. Possibly, it was the challenge: one had to pay attention to everything, from the smallest gesture to what he didn't mention, in order to have any chance of figuring out what the man actually meant. She flattered herself she had a pretty good idea of what sort of person he was after several years of unwrapping the hidden clues.

Or she might be completely wrong, and he sniggered at her naivety as soon as she had left. There was no way of knowing, and that made Snape endlessly fascinating.

Well that, and the fact that he had spent most of his life atoning for the misdeeds of his youth, far beyond the point where most people would have resigned themselves to failure. He seemed to regard his position as Headmaster as a penance rather than the reward it had been intended as, and yet did everything within his powers to protect the students he despised.

Thinking about Snape, trying to puzzle him out, had effectively become Hermione's hobby. There were worse things, she reassured herself. Weren't there?

She was quite careful, however, not to betray to her friends how much of the time she spent in her own head was devoted to a surly man twenty years older than her. Hermione knew very well how it would sound, and long experience had taught her Ron would put it exactly like that.

Minerva McGonagall, who seemed to have her own ways of communicating with her successor, occasionally made Hermione wonder if their esteemed leader was using Occlumency on the sly.

"If we must, we can dispense with your meeting with Severus this month. I'm told the curfew measures in Hogsmeade have been tightened again."

"It's fine," Hermione rushed to reassure her. "George's Broom Acceleration Charm gets me through their wards, and once I'm inside the village it never occurs to the patrols to look up."

It was a challenge to keep her eyes honestly fixed on Minerva's, especially while her uppermost thought was that she couldn't bear going two whole months without seeing Sev– Snape. Hermione almost wilted, but after what seemed an unbearably long time Minerva seemed to take her word for it.

"Good. The leadership council will meet on Thursday. Any luck with the Squib Taskforce?"

* * *

Severus decided it was just like Herm– Granger to be late for their subsequent meeting, too. Even as a student, she had excelled at causing maximum anxiety in those tasked with ensuring her safety. There was still a faint scar on his wrist where a violently struggling Mandrake had bit him when he was brewing the Mandrake Restorative Draught that revived her from being Petrified.

Somehow, the thought of a Petrified Hermione didn't seem so bad at the present time. That way, at least he would be able to keep her safe. Once the war was over, he could stew another hundred Mandrakes to bring her back to life – and then? Even at the moment of victory, Hermione was unlikely to fall into his arms. The best Severus could say for himself was that he didn't harbour any delusions his affections were returned.

There was no fool like an old fool, and Severus Snape was perhaps the biggest fool in all of the Dark Lord's realm.

He did in fact have something else to recommend him; the three women he had loved over the course of his misspent life were all infinitely superior to him. The first had been his mother; that the other two both had been brilliant Muggle-borns was a sign that Fate had a sense of humour, after all.

This time, he had thrown a blanket over the whore so he didn't have to look at her; pacing the room, imagining the barbs he would throw at Hermione for keeping him waiting again, was a more effective distraction if he imagined himself alone.

Rosmerta had a pinched look about her face and she had seemed more than usually skittish today, jumping at each door banging as her patrons came and went, but Severus wasn't overly concerned. All it took to overset her these days was yet another levy – the corkage tax had almost brought her to her knees two years ago. Presumably, whatever set her on edge this time was equally humdrum concerns.

Severus knew better than most wizards how real poverty grinds you down, consuming every spark of hope for better things. He didn't think Rosmerta was quite at the breadline, however, so his sympathies were limited.

He cast a glowering look at the kettle, sitting plump and shiny on the dressing table like the embodiment of Severus' inability to stop thinking about Hermione Granger.

Turning on the spot again, his robes hitting the enormous gilded mirror Rosmerta had picked long before she had been reduced to running a brothel – it ought to be a comfort some of her investment had not been wasted – he was prepared to take another five strides before he had to turn again when a noise in the corridor outside made him stop mid-step.

Severus advanced cautiously, tapping the door with his wand and leaning his ear against it.

"In the name of the Dark Lord, I command you to open this door!" someone bellowed. Severus tightened his grasp on his wand convulsively, until it creaked in protest.

* * *

It was flipping cold at two thousand feet, despite three layers of thermal underwear scavenged from expeditions to Muggle shops. Hermione's hands were locked into position, wrapped around the handle of her broom, and she wasn't sure if she was still able to move her fingers.

With any luck they would fall off in front of Snape, and he could entertain himself making sarcastic comments about her ineptitude while he charmed them back on.

She was flying too high to be detected by local wards, and too low to collide with airplanes (even pure-blood supremacists tended to admit being Muggle-born came with some advantages if they had ever been on collision course with a Jumbo-jet). Minerva's concerns about increased security measures in Hogsmeade didn't worry Hermione unduly; her continued existence was a continued sore point with He-Who-Must-Be-Defeated, so visiting the wizarding village was hardly more risky than remaining at their camp.

In fact, her chances of survival probably increased when she joined the presumed loyalist population in Hogsmeade; the patrols didn't even use Unforgivables.

If she could only get there before she froze solid and fell off her broom, she was confident of her chances of surviving the night.

* * *

"What's going on?" The occupant of the adjacent room did not seem pleased being interrupted mid-coitus (Severus' charm had removed all Silencing Charms placed on the establishment – with his luck, his neighbour would of course decide to ignore the summons in favour of continuing with his chosen activity).

"None of your business. Sir," his interlocutor added belatedly, and Severus could have groaned in dismay. It was Selwyn; he'd recognise that lazy drawl anywhere. In addition to being a vicious bastard with an inclination for thuggery his hallowed ancestors would have been aghast at, Selwyn was Head of the Muggle-Born Eradication Task Force. If Selwyn was here –

Severus's fingers twitched with the effort of refraining from warning Hermione. Every instinct screamed that he must contact her now, before it was too late, but any attempt at rational thought told him he must wait to find out more.

"Well, why are you banging down my door, then?" The unknown wizard next door plainly didn't know Selwyn as well as Severus did. He didn't even sound apprehensive.

"We," Selwyn's voice moved away, as if he had entered quite far into the room, "are in receipt of information that a dangerous fugitive might be visiting the locality."

"My goodness, really?" The man's voice almost hit a falsetto note in his surprise.

"Yeah. So push off." There was some further commotion at the other side of the wall, but Severus stopped paying attention as soon as it was clear Selwyn wasn't about to share more information with the civilian.

He dropped his shoulders and cleared his head as best as he could, helped by practice honed by hiding most of what made him Severus before countless meetings with the Dark Lord. When his mind was still, he raised his wand above his head in a circular motion Filius once had taught him, and waited.

Slowly, the walls of the inn paled into nothing – left was only its occupants, obscured by the occasional piece of furniture. He saw at a glance that there were far too many people there – Rosmerta would have been successful beyond her wildest dreams if she could attract a crowd like this on a wet November Tuesday. In every room looking out to the yard, there was a cluster of black robes with silver masks peeping through their hoods gathered around the invisible window. Their wands were pointing to the sky, towards the still invisible Hermione.

Severus felt bile rising in his throat, but swallowed it down until there was no saliva left in his dry mouth.

Lowering his wand abruptly, the charm lifted and the walls slowly shimmered back into place. He didn't need it for the next bit – another piece of complicated wand-waving (taught to him by Albus, this time) left him with a mental map of the wards his fellow Death Eaters had laced their trap with.

Someone spoke in a muffled voice outside his door; had Severus not lifted the Silencing Charms already, he wouldn't even have noticed.

"And this one?"

"Are you mental? That's the Headmaster's room – are you going to butt in while he's getting his jollies, asking if he's hiding Mudblood Granger under the bed?" If Selwyn still feared incurring Severus's displeasure, his cover still held – which begged the question of how he had come by his information.

The answer, while creating a score to be settled in the near future, was not important at the moment. The thick wall of pulsating wards created by Selwyn's troops, encasing the inn like a tightly spun cocoon harbouring a malevolent butterfly of contained violence, consumed all of Severus' attention as he turned his wand this way, then that way, to try to find a weak spot.

There were none; one of Selwyn's more surprising traits were his thoroughness, almost as unexpected as his insistence on always getting his round in.

Unless the strong winds had made Hermione turn back – even as a student, Miss Granger had been as stubborn as a goat, so Severus strongly doubted the elements would be enough to put her off her chosen course – she was heading straight into Selwyn's trap, and there wasn't a thing Severus could do to warn her without blowing his cover. Even then, he would have been hard pressed to find a way, with no way to get through the wards, on his own against more than fifty Death Eaters.

Another man would have beaten his fist bloody against the wall,or screamed and railed against the way he seemed to infect everyone he came close to with his own bad luck.

Severus moved softly towards the window, a dark silhouette against the lit-up yard. Only someone standing right next to him would have noticed the way his hands were shaking, like they were breaking under the strain to remain still.


	3. Chapter 3

The looming towers of Hogwarts signalled the end of her long trip, at last. In another life, Hermione might have set down there and joined the Headmaster in his quarters for a cup of tea and a discussion about Potions. Then again, what would he have wanted with the derided Know-It-All? Perhaps Hermione should count her blessings – there was nothing she could do to change the present, so she may as well enjoy its few perks.

She moved her fingers experimentally, grimacing with the effort of untangling them from the broom handle. They hadn't fallen off, at least, but she rather thought having some feelings in her hands might be beneficial before beginning her landing. Wandless magic was all well and good, but to do some real damage one needed a wand.

A lot of people in Hogsmeade wanted her dead; Hermione had no inclination to make it easy for them. Constant vigilance, and all that.

Besides, another five minutes would teach Severus she kept no one's schedule but her own. She burrowed her chin deep down into her well-worn Gryffindor scarf and settled in for another lap around the village.

* * *

"I'll have that ready for you in a minute, sir. Excuse me for a moment." Rosmerta's hands and smile worked of their own accord, pouring a pint in eight seconds flat while looking like she was pleased to see the rabble Barnaby Selwyn saw fit to run over her inn with. She ducked into the kitchen, passing the surprised chef on her way to the pantry without a word.

There was nothing much in the pantry, other than a window looking out over the yard. For several anxious seconds Rosmerta stood on her tippy toes, trying to catch a glimpse of anything moving out there.

Selwyn had laid his trap well – there was nothing to alert that brazen hussy her chickens finally were coming home to roast.

Rosmerta knew her kind. There was no way she could attract a man like Severus if it hadn't been for the war. The canny Miss Granger knew how to use his divided loyalties against him, enticing him to seek her out for comfort he was too cautious to seek elsewhere.

Sev had always been like that, grateful for the crumbs thrown to him from the table. Rosmerta had known him since he had been a snot-nosed brat with his nose stuck in a book, only rousing himself when Lily Evans bothered to acknowledge his existence.

She had been a tart in a lady's clothing as well, that Evans girl – no one had ever heard of her parents before, and still she had married James Potter. Much good his wealth had done for her, too.

They never bothered to look at the woman serving them, those girls with their bright futures ahead of them. Not like the boys – they noticed her all right. Rosmerta had done well for herself, too, saving enough to buy the best pub in Hogsmeade before she was forty. The prudish Hogwarts girls could turn their noses up at the way she dressed all they wanted; back then, a generous bosom had been enough to pull in the tips like you wouldn't believe.

It had all changed now, of course – Rosmerta had never signed up for running a brothel, and she despised most of her regulars.

Severus was different. He had suffered under the new regime, too. Rosmerta had earned her living watching people for almost four decades, and Sev wasn't as good as he thought at playing the Big Bad Death Eater. The illusion worked on most people, or he would have been long dead, but it was harder to fool someone who had helped cleaning him up after spewing out his innards as a sixteen-year-old, sobbing about Lily Evans.

She had been almost sure about him. Almost.

It wasn't until she had managed to overhear Granger in his chamber she had known for sure – not even Severus knew The Three Broomsticks as well as she did, and he had forgotten to ward the little hole in a floorboard where the knot had fallen out. Lying flat on her back on the ceiling of the lounge with her face full of sawdust, Rosmerta had finally realised what brought Severus Snape to her house of ill repute.

Mudblood Granger, they called her – Public Enemy Number Three, if Rosmerta recalled correctly. The prize money alone would allow her to retire in comfort. No more aching knees masked by a comely smile, no more putting girls half her age up for sale.

That wasn't why she was doing it, though. It was for Severus. He needed a woman of his own age, someone who could look after him and prevent him from throwing his life away on that useless Order.

It was time they all realised that the war had been fought and lost – what better confirmation than the capture of Hermione Granger? Any moment now her broom would approach, and this time all her spells and charms would not be enough to save her.

Rosmerta looked out at the yard one more time before returning to her customers, but it laid empty in the moonlight

* * *

Twelve brittle rings from the clock on the mantlepiece announced that Hermione was late, and Severus almost dared to hope she had never set out at all. Maybe a last-minute mission or a broken broom had confined her to camp and she was safe and sound. He pictured her at the campfire, her hair let down and her body leaning forward, laughing at something one of her friends had said.

It would be for the best if she could remain that way. Far beyond his touch, Hermione would be safe from the plague of destruction Severus eventually brought upon everyone that mattered to him. There were plenty of other ways she could waste her life in this endless war – he would simply request a different liaison, and she would no doubt find a more pleasant way to spend one night per month.

Severus could live with the void she would leave behind – he could live with almost anything, as long as he could believe Hermione was still going to be free in the morning. Then he saw a tiny speck on the moon, getting bigger and bigger with each second. It grew into a witch on a broom, like in the Muggle storybooks Severus had turned his nose up as a child.

Even then, he had been too clever to believe in happy endings.

There was no rustling of robes, no whispers and nudges among the waiting Death Eaters – could they not see her diving headlong into their ambush? In his anguish, he forgot the layers upon layers of protective charms they had woven together to keep their encounters secret. Only Severus could see her being buffeted by the gusts of wind, fighting to stay on course towards her doom.

Being invisible was little protection in the end – Selwyn's trap would slam shut as soon as Hermione reached the yard at The Three Broomsticks.

Severus closed his eyes, seeking strength to endure what was about to unfold before him. If all he could do was to bear witness, then he was determined not to miss anything for Hermione's sake. Yet again, he had picked the wrong option – he bitterly regretted not attacking the ambushers while he had a chance to take some of them down. He had chosen the duty thrust on him by Dumbledore, the duty to protect what innocence his students still retained for a few more years over the inkling of a chance to save Hermione.

If he ever had to choose again between things that mattered to him, Severus would make his choice and then do the opposite.

As he was waiting to see Hermione torn off her broom and savaged by the soldiers of the Dark Lord, Severus couldn't recall ever wanting anything as much as he wanted to find a way through Selwyn's wall of spells to warn her. Not when he was waiting for his Hogwarts letter; not when he finally realised he was losing Lily; not even when he had been willing to sell his increasingly tattered soul for a chance to bring Lily and then her son back from the dead.

With each dip into the abyss of despair he carried the weight of his previous mistakes, and so Hermione's imminent capture was the culmination of the misfortunes Severus Snape had inflicted on those he loved.

The silvery, shimmering shape took him by surprise as it burst out of the tip of his wand. Severus barely had time to notice its shape as it dove out through the window, swimming upwards towards the approaching witch without being impeded by any of Selwyn's carefully crafted wards.

Severus only became aware that his mouth was open as he tensed into a defensive posture – the Death Eaters may be unaware their prey was approaching, but they had certainly noticed his Patronus. Brainless as they were, he didn't expect them to be flummoxed about its origin for more than a few minutes.

They would not take him alive. The Dark Lord liked to play with his prisoners, and Severus had no intention to allow him an opportunity to indulge in his favourite pastime.

As he flexed his fingers, preparing for his last battle, he allowed himself one last look at the silver doe that almost had reached Hermione, still several hundred yards from the bubble of enchantments encasing The Three Broomsticks. She was going to be able to escape back to her camp, and as Severus went to his death he would imagine her living many long, happy years before she finally withered of old age.

What he saw almost made him drop his wand.

* * *

"Turn back! It's a trap – turn back! Selwyn's men... – in the yard" Severus' voice sounded as close to panic as she had ever heard him, and although Hermione strained to catch all the words among the howling of the wind, the doe delivered her message with aplomb.

She had known his Patronus form, of course, but seeing it in the flesh pierced her heart in a way that had nothing to do with the danger at hand. Dismissing it – Severus's love for Lily Potter was old news – she made some quick calculations, still hurtling at full speed towards Hogsmeade and The Three Broomsticks. Once she turned, the game would be up for Severus – if it wasn't already.

They would have put wards on the inn, preventing anyone from leaving. Severus would be stuck, and thanks to his method of communication he had practically nailed his colours to the mask. His career as a spy was over and so was his life, unless –

It couldn't possibly work, but unless she wanted to join him so they could die fighting together, Hermione couldn't think of anything else.

If the last years had taught her anything, it was that life was too precious to throw away.

She would do her very best for Severus, and then she would turn back, racing for safety – she harboured no illusions Selwyn would let her go quietly once he realised she had escaped his trap. Making her decision in a split second, she summoned up the memory of Severus turning away to hide a smile at some of her more colourful invectives about Umbridge's latest white paper on Muggle-borns.

Hermione barely had time to notice her otter had been replaced by something feline, as she tossed a coin to it in the air.

It took considerable resolution to force her broom around in a loop, turning her back to Severus, her Patronus and her emergency Portkey which most probably was heading at speed towards the ground. Forcing the creaking wood upwards, Hermione found herself the right way up again, with nothing else to do except race as if the dogs of hell were on her heels.

If half of what she heard about Selwyn was true, it was more a prediction than a metaphor. She squeezed her elbows in, resisting the temptation to turn backwards.

* * *

The blurred shape turned out to be a leopard, to Severus' mild surprise – he had been quite sure Hermione's last known Patronus had been an otter.

The shape of the creature mattered little, however – the fact that it was carrying an object in its mouth rendered Severus Snape speechless. The body of a corporeal Patronus was still as substantial as the air it travelled through, for all that it resembled a real animal. Trust Hermione Granger to achieve the impossible, when most witches would have considered even the attempt a futile endeavour.

He had thought he would never hear her voice again. When the leopard ordered him to say "Go", he obeyed instinctively, beyond surprise as his hoarse whisper activated the Portkey.

It was only as Severus laid gasping on the floor in what appeared to be a ruin overgrown with ivy and other weeds that he realised she must have given him her only means of escape. He had taken it, leaving Hermione to fend off a company of Death Eaters alone on her broom.

Wherever he was, there was moonlight here too, and Severus stared at the sky in a vain attempt to triangulate his position relative to Hogwarts. There were spells for that, but he didn't know what protections were placed on this hideout and was unwilling to use anything but essential magic until he did.

Setting up rudimentary wards occupied his mind for several minutes. After that, all there was to do was to stare at the blank disc of the moon, waiting for a witch who may never come.

* * *

Severus started, his eyes flicking wide open and his hands reflexively tightening the grasp on his wand, which had slipped down on his lap. He didn't know how long he had been asleep – the moon seemed to be in the same place it had been before, above the spindly branches of the leafless trees marking the boundary of the abandoned dwelling.

Time moved like quicksand, treacherously fast and slow in turns.

Dawn was creeping across the edge of the skye, and Severus tried to believe it didn't mean anything. Daylight was an arbitrary limit – there was no reason to believe Hermione was more or less likely to be alive simply because the long night almost was over.

Even as Severus tried to reassure himself that Hermione probably had sought shelter somewhere else, reluctant to travel by broom in daylight, there was a rustling sound from his wards being tripped. Hermione tumbled down from her broom in a pile of curly brown hair and ill-fitting clothes, collapsing on the ground.

Severus didn't notice he had flung his wand aside in his haste to get to her until several moments later, when he had satisfied himself that her ice-cold hands and frozen cheeks were nothing worse than the inevitable consequences of flying through gale-force winds in November.

When he came to his senses again, he was sitting on the ground with Hermione wrapped in his arms.

Curiously, she seemed to have no complaints, leaning against his chest while her teeth slowly stopped clattering enough for her to speak. "I guess you'll be joining the Order full-time, now."

"You shouldn't have wasted your Portkey on me." Severus wanted to turn her around so he could glare at her properly, but that would mean he had to put an end to the one time he was likely to ever hold Hermione in his arms.

"I don't think it was wasted, do you?"

"I didn't realise your subversion of the laws of magic was premeditated."

"Sometimes, you just have to take your chances. Come on, don't you want to go inside?" She gently shrugged herself loose of his grip, but grabbed his hand instead to pull him up to standing.

"There is an inside?" Severus looked around, but even in the soft sunlight he could only see the shape of the collapsed walls, covered in ivy.

Hermione did a complicated wand movement, and a snug farmhouse appeared where the ruins had laid. "There should be firewood inside."

She still hadn't let go of his hand, wrapping her cold fingers around it like it was something precious.

"It didn't occur to you to mention this before?" When in doubt, Severus sought refuge in sarcasm.

"When I was trying to escape from a company of Death Eaters, you mean? I'll be sure to mention it the next time." She gently tugged him across the threshold, lighting the fire as soon as she stepped inside.

"Are you going to release my hand?"

"No." Hermione simply tightened her grip. "Is that a problem?"

Severus considered the matter, and decided to go with the flow for once in his life. "No."

"Great. Now, will you rustle up some food while I make tea,or would you rather do it the other way around?"

Fortified with a cup of tea, Severus tried to come to terms with the fact that his career as a spy was over. The blow was tempered by the fact that he seemed to have become permanently attached to Hermione in the process. She had eventually loosened the grip on his hand, opting instead to sit very close to him in front of the fire.

He had to fight the impulse to bury his face in her hair, but he snuck little whiffs of the scent instead. Hermione smelled of fresh air and snow, and something else that was warm and earthy.

"Now that you're with us, we should have this war wrapped up in no time," she announced, stirring the fire with her wand.

"I admire your optimism."

"Between us, with Minerva thrown in for good measure, we should be able to outsmart Tom Marvolo Riddle without too much trouble, don't you think?"

Severus felt the corner of his mouth quiver uncertainly. It wasn't until Hermione turned around to look at him, eyes brimming with merriment, that he realised he was actually smiling.

 **THE END**

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